My Stanley Hotel Experience
In October 2022, I won flights and a two-night stay at The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado. We booked the flights over my birthday, December 2022, and then I got COVID. We rescheduled for September 2023.
My fiancé and I took this trip and I didn't know much about The Shining or Stephen King for that matter. I knew of Stephen King, of course, but I've never read any of his books. Experiencing The Stanley Hotel was a very new experience for me and I absolutely loved it.
Before I get into the book review, I want to share my experience at The Stanley Hotel. I did write an entire blog post on it and I hope you enjoy it and consider going. While at the hotel and understanding the history and more about The Shining, I ordered the book so it was at my house when I arrived home.
I started reading it and my brain is still having a hard time wrapping my head around everything.
Stephen King wrote the book, The Shining, in room 217 at The Stanley Hotel. Although we were only five rooms over, we stayed in room 223, we did a tour where you could see room 217 (below).
We could open our window and see the 217 balcony from our room. The Shining takes place in The Stanley Hotel (but is named The Overlook) and talks a lot about room 217 (and the bad things that happen there). So, for me, to stay in a hotel where Stephen King wrote the book about the hotel is much easier for me to imagine.
When he talks about the elevator, and the stairs, and room 217, I know exactly what he is talking about. With the hotel being more than 100 years old, and with us hearing what sounded like kids on their scooters in the rooms above us at 11pm, I can completely relate to the eeriness to the hotel.
Character Breakdown
There are three main characters - Jack Torrance, Wendy Torrance, and Danny Torrance. There are a few other important characters as well - Mr. Hallorann and Al Shockley, which will all be discussed below.
Jack seemed to have it all - a wife, a 5-year old child, a teaching job, and writer. Unfortunately, his alcoholism and anger got in the way. He lost his teaching job, ended up breaking his sons arm in a drunken rage, and decided to focus solely on play writing to hopefully redeem himself.
His friend (and previous drinking buddy, Al Shockley) hooked him up with being a caretaker during the winter at The Overlook Hotel (built in the years 1907-1909). Wendy and Danny both join him for six months in hopes to bring the family together (away from drinking, especially). The hotel would be closed for that time but there still needed to be maintenance done, which included running the boiler and heating the hotel on a daily basis.
Caretaking also consisted of making any repairs that needed to be done. The winters were brutal so not much was to be expected, especially since it snows so much that you couldn't even take a car up to the front of the hotel, it would have to be a snowmobile. Food was stocked so there was plenty of that and no alcohol whatsoever. They were far from the nearest town and had radio signal to call for if they needed assistance (until Jack broke the radio).
The Overlook Hotel had a history of famous celebrities, prostitutes, murders, and gangs and Jack will be the one to unveil its colorful past.
Before arriving at The Overlook Hotel, Wendy knew her son was gifted. He could read thoughts, had intense dreams, and an imaginary friend (Tony, which you end up finding out that it's actually an older version of Danny, warning his younger self of the events to come) that tells him things that a 5 year old should not know. He knew things that other people didn't know.
His talent was called a "shine" or "shining" ("It's being able to understand things. To know things. Sometimes you see things.") and others had this skill as well - including Mr. Hallorann who is the chef (hotel cook) at The Overlook Hotel. During the wintertime when the hotel closes, Mr. Hallorann goes to Florida. Since he is a shine, he knew that Danny also had the shine and spoke to him briefly before he left, letting Danny know he can call for him at any time (just say his name and he will hear him).
Mr. Hallorann made Danny promise not to go into room 217. He also told Danny that if he sees something, to just look the other way and then when he looks back, it will be gone. Sometimes the things they see in their mind or their thoughts aren't true.
The Torrance family arrived at the hotel of the final day of closing, before The Overlook closed for the winter. There was a lot of activity going on, hustle and bustle, people moving quickly, Jack received the tour so he knew where everything was - food, boiler, who to call, where things were located, and how to have a successful six months running the hotel.
By this point, Jack had already heard a few stories of the hotels' past including the death of the previous caretaker who apparently murdered his family before committing suicide. It was suspected that he had cabin fever (anxiety and exhaustion, irritability, aka going stir crazy being stuck in a hotel for six months).
The story starts with Jack doing some work around the hotel and ends up losing himself in the history of the hotel through scrapbooks in the cellar. He discovers old newspaper clippings, receipts, bills and invoices, even a hand puppet. He imagines what life was like back in the day - prostitution, smuggling, gambling, war, previous owners, bankruptcies, deaths, suspicious deaths, drugs, robbery, this hotel had experienced everything!
He had this idea that using all of this information, he could write a book about The Overlook. He was a writer, wasn't he? But as he mentioned this to Al Shockley, his best friend, he warned against it.
As Jacks sober days kept moving forward, his thoughts intensified - as if he was still drinking. The hotel was pulling at him. The hotel was breaking his family apart. He was thinking thoughts and imagining things that weren't real. He had already broken Danny's arm so his wife was still on the verge of whether or not she could trust him when weird things started to happen.
An example included Jack setting off a bug bomb and killed wasps but they came back to life and stung Danny 11 times. Or when a voice started telling Jack to kill Danny and then Danny shows up with bruises and marks (Danny actually went against Mr. Hallorann's wishes and went into room 217 where he saw a dead woman in the bathtub who grabbed him by the neck and tried to strangle him before he narrowly escaped) and Wendy thought Jack beat his child.
Jack decided to go to room 217 to see what Danny saw. Everything was in its place. As he went to leave, the shower curtain which he had pushed back, was now drawn. The door to the hall that was open, was now shut. And he could hear the doorknob being turned. He knew something was going on.
And this was just the beginning. The Torrance family was at the hotel not much longer than just a few months and by now, there was a list of things that had happened in this hotel.
The hedges outside of the hotel, shaped like animals, came to life in front of Danny and Jack and tried to attack them both on several occasions. And, although the bar was stripped of all its alcohol, Jack fell into the trap of the hotel (ghosts? demons? evil spirits?) and imagined beer bottles all lined up, he could smell the beer, he talked to the "bartender", took pretend shots, and even heard the booths behind him fill up with voices and people for their masquerade party.
He was talking to himself, knowing this wasn't real, but feeling like it was.
"It wants all of us. It's tricking Daddy, it's fooling him, trying to make him think it wants him the most. It wants me the most, but it will take all of us." -- Danny
And, of course, the infamous firehose-turned-snake slithering after Danny.
"In the Overlook all things had a sort of life. It was as if the whole place had been wound up with a silver key."
"The hotel was running things now."
Danny asked for Mr. Hallorann to come back to the hotel to help them. Both shining, Mr. Hallorann could hear and sense Danny and knew he needed help but his trek from Florida to Colorado wasn't an easy one. It was like the hotel controlled that too - from hitting a guardrail (driving in the worst snow storm since 1969), detours, going through deep snow, a lady on the plane yelling that it was going to crash, having to use a snowmobile to get to the hotel, and he could feel that something was going to happen to Danny if he didn't get to him quick.
He does make it to the hotel but gets injured in the process of trying to save Danny (as well as dealing with those dang animal hedges that keep coming to life) and the end of the book is terrifying with the hotel (ghosts, demons, whatever "it" was) completely taking over Jack - but I will leave that for you to read.
Its quite intense and I definitely didn't expect the ending.
My Review of The Shining
I would rate this book a 9/10. Stephen King was very descriptive in his writing and I did picture myself there at the hotel (both from his words and also because I have been to The Stanley Hotel which helped me picture it even more) which can be hard to do sometimes.
I enjoyed feeling like I was there, although terrified and sucked in probably way more than I should have been. I liked understanding the lives and back stories of the main characters.
The one thing that I found odd at times was the way that Danny would think. A lot of the book shared Danny's thoughts and, although it does mention that at age five, Danny didn't understand a lot of what he was thinking or saying, I still can't imagine a five year old even coming remotely close to thinking or saying certain things that he did.
Yes, he is gifted beyond his years, but when I was reading it, I was reading it like it was an adult vs an actual child.
I also didn't like the fact that there were uncomfortable racist words mentioned, with Mr. Hallorann being African American.
I had no idea that there was a sequel to this book (even with the mention of it on the cover) so I went on Amazon and purchased Doctor Sleep. *This post contains affiliate links. I may receive a small commission if you purchase using any of my links. For more information, please read our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.
I am looking forward to not only reading the sequel, but also watching the movies to see how the book relates.
Have you stayed at The Stanley Hotel or read The Shining? Share your experience in the comments below! And if you would like to read another book review I shared, you can read my Book Review: Don't Believe Everything You Think - A Fresh Perspective on Mental Wellness.
Comments
Post a Comment